


any other way

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26225152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: Juno's last night before warning Vestige.
Relationships: Butcher Rose/Juno
Kudos: 8





	any other way

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Hobbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon) for holding my hand through this game and giving this fic a once-over. :)

_“I’m the Butcher, and you’re the Hatchet. Frankly, I don’t see how it was gonna be any other way.”_

Juno’s thoughts rattled like loaded dice, keeping her awake in the Gehenna night. The sheets felt sweaty, constricting, coiled around her like a noose until she thrashed her way free. She sat on the edge of the bed, feet flat on the floor, and shivered under the low whirr of the ceiling fan. The sky was dark through the window slats, and green where the aftermath of blasts still kicked up storms of radiation and old Company ghosts.

The Company made monsters. Some of them were beautiful monsters, to be sure—even the devils were beautiful beasts, once you learned the trick of seeing it. Once you knew to look for the rainbow tint on the edge of their scales, the way their tails swayed supple as ribbons.

But they were still monsters.

The Company made Rose too, sure as ruination. Rose had never worked for them herself, but Juno knew her grandmother had, and her mother too. Juno knew about the songs passed down between them, heirlooms like a well-oiled pistol. When Rose whistled, the devils danced.

Rose was beautiful, curled on her side. One arm still reached for Juno’s place in the bed, the thorns on her arms glinting.

“Baby, come back to bed,” Rose murmured, and Juno’s heart rattled. Maybe Juno was a devil too, because Rose’s voice was a melody that hooked beneath her spine. It was easy to listen to her, easier still to want to fall back in love with her. Rose was the Butcher, and Juno was the Hatchet. It wasn’t like it could be any other way.

“Can’t sleep. Just going for a walk,” said Juno. She wasn’t even lying, though the full truth of it didn’t land until after the words left her mouth. It chalked her lips, bitter as quinine.

Rose hummed softly and tilted her face expectantly. So Juno leaned in to give her a kiss.

Just kissing Rose was a type of hurt, because Juno never quite got the trick of avoiding the spikes under Rose’s lip. But it was a good hurt, mostly. And leastwise it never hurt anyone but Juno.

Juno kissed Rose as long as Juno herself could stand it and as soft as she could remember how. Kiss too hard and Rose might wake up, might draw Juno back in, and Juno knew that if she had to face Rose by the full light of morning—if she had to face Rose with Juno’s back still clawed from loving and Rose’s scent still in her mouth—then she’d never leave at all.

Juno knew she could end it, right here. One cut, clean and quick. Her hatchet, Rose’s neck.

Except…

That was how the Devil Riders lived, and dead people couldn’t change. Least she owed Rose a chance to _try_.

This was another way.


End file.
